The Shining

It's December! And you know what that means, right? Sitting back and enjoying a good holiday movie. Like The Shining for example. Classic holiday movie, right? This horror masterpiece was directed by Stanley Kubrick and stars Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall and Danny Lloyd. So come play with us forever and ever and enter the garden maze, this is The Shining!

"Heeeeerrrrreee's an awesome movie!"-Jack Torrence.

The Plot:
The Shining is about a writer who slowly becomes insane and tries to....No, that's not right. The Shining is about a family in a hotel that is haunted by ghosts and they have to...That's not right either. The Shining is about a family of writers who go insane at a hotel with ghosts. Nailed it. Anyways, this movie is about a writer and his family who stay at the Overlook Hotel and find out there's more to it than they thought. Jack Torrence, his wife and their son have to spend 5 months looking after the hotel and keep it up until the hotel is open for the season. However, as mentioned, there's more there than they bargained for. Jack, slowly succumbs to the evil at the hotel and begins to become more and more insane. Meanwhile, Wendy and Danny attempt to lead a normal life, but become threatened as Jack loses his sanity. (Accidental Joker origin story, perhaps?) Things start out normal, but the evil lurking inside the hotel eventually have Jack turn on his family and attempts to kill them. However, Wendy proves to be more resourceful than her husband and ends up besting him (by running away, of course). Jack tries to have one last attempt, but is outwitted by his son while chasing him through a maze in the freezing cold. Jack finally becomes part of the hotel, or was he always part of the hotel to begin with? Anyways, Wendy and Danny make their escape and we're left to assume how it ended for them.

The Good:
I'm not much of a horror movie person, mainly due to the fact that most "scary" movies are boring. That being said, I love The Shining. Kubrick was a master at making films and paced the movie in all the right ways. It starts off slow and normal and then the tension grows and grows until you're left with an epic finale. Jack Nicholson is brilliant and performs the role perfectly. Shelly Duvall's best acting is in the 3rd act and she's pretty good. The subtle tones of the movie are amazing too. You've got white man vs. Indians, as seen by Jack's "destruction" of the art. He tosses a ball at an Indian painting. Wendy's attire becomes more and more Native American as the movie progresses. Then there's the supernatural elements. Danny and his psychic powers. The ghost twins, room 237, and the ghosts Jack communicates with are all superb and interesting. Honestly, if any aspiring director wants to make a horror movie, they should watch this first.

The Bad:
Shelly Duvall's acting in the first two acts are meh at best. I get she's supposed to be happy go lucky and all, but most of the time, she comes off timid. Now, this could be because Kubrick was verbally abusing her and threatening her, but I don't know. Then there's some stuff that could have been left out. For example, there's one scene involving the head chef traveling to the hotel (because he's physic too and wants to save Wendy and Danny) and we see him driving through the snow. For a good five minutes at least. I get that it's snowing hard, but I've been beat over the head throughout how bad the snow storm is. It's repetitive and I dislike it when movies constantly beat me over the head with something I already know.

Overall:
The Shining is awesome. I love almost every second of it and I never get tired of watching it. It's also a good holiday movie to watch (a friend of mine's family does this and inspired me to do it as well). If you haven't seen this movie, dooo it. It's amazing.

Bonus Round:
1) They had to use a thicker door for Jack to cut through. He was a volunteer fire marshal at the time and chopped through the door to fast. They also had him cut through about 50 doors to get the scene right.

2) The scene where Wendy finds Jack's "book" was type written in at least four different languages for international release.

3) There was a happy ending originally in earlier drafts but it was removed. It had Wendy and Danny in a hospital being offered to live with the hotel's manager in California. Weird.

4) Shelly Duvall had to do the baseball bat scene 127 times before Kubrick deemed it perfect. She was so stressed she actually lost some hair.

Rating: 5 REDRUMs out of 5.